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Is .20 Dead?

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Sheridan starting production in 1947. And AFAIK Sheridan was the innovator of the .20 air gun pellet. That makes the lowly humble little .20 caliber 75 years old this year. So my guess is the .20 caliber is older than the majority of us air gunners on this forum that still shoot the caliber and it will likely out live everyone of us. Albeit with a small limited selection of manufacturers and styles. So what? Live the moment I say.

So what else was going on in 1947?
  • Harry S Truman was still president
  • The Cold War begins
  • The Roswell UFO incident happened. Who’s doesn’t like👽?
  • Chuck Yeager is the first person to break the sound barrier in level flight
  • Jackie Robinson took to the field for the first time wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform
  • The United Nations votes in favor of the creation of Israel
  • Pakistan and India gain independence from Great Britain
  • Bell Laboratories invents the transistor
I’m sure lots more

Anyways,
Long live the .20 cal!
 
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interesting to note - ive been working on a cayden that literally choked pellets to .20 cal .. i have since lapped the barrel alittle looser where i can can actually push them through by hand vs a sledge hammer on a cleaning rod lol ..

IMG_20220714_174045.jpg
 
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A friend/neighbor passed 2 years ago he had a Beeman springer in 20 I am considering picking up if it’s a R9. Not interested in anything under 12 lbs energy. 20 sounds interesting just as something different but I already have to stock 177, 22 and 25. To my thinking .20 is like 17 M2 rim fire that’s a great cartridge that didn’t get the love it deserved. It is only produced every few years but a few new guns might save it from the fate of the 5mm Remington. If you guys keep buying the ammo it will be for sale. The caliber just might be the perfect one for medium powered springers in the 15 - 20 ft lb range but for now nothing beats 22.
 
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L.Leon said:
The market speaks, and ballistics aside, it's not a popular caliber. It's performance can be matched by more readily available calibers... Can you buy .20s at a Wally World?, or, locally? At a sporting goods store, probably not... The .177 and .22 will always outsell the .20s
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The .20’s are the black sheep of airgunning 😉
 
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Dan25 said:
A friend/neighbor passed 2 years ago he had a Beeman springer in 20 I am considering picking up if it’s a R9. Not interested in anything under 12 lbs energy. 20 sounds interesting just as something different but I already have to stock 177, 22 and 25. To my thinking .20 is like 17 M2 rim fire that’s a great cartridge that didn’t get the love it deserved. It is only produced every few years but a few new guns might save it from the fate of the 5mm Remington. If you guys keep buying the ammo it will be for sale. The caliber just might be the perfect one for medium powered springers in the 15 - 20 ft lb range but for now nothing beats 22.
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Even if just to have something from an old friend, it's worth picking up, regardless of which model it may be. If you decide after the fact to pass whatever it is on to a fellow airgunner, nothing wrong with that either. As for stocking, I have guns in 4 calibers, so already there...lol.
Mentioned it before and will again for chuckles... Many, many Sheridan's still out there, whether rifle or pistol, along with countless guns in other brands gunners still have, so while small, there will always be a market for .20 caliber pellets. If there wasn't, H&N and JSB would have stopped production years ago.
 
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Not if you are one of the enlightened ones who dealt up with the limited pellet selection offered over the years. Which by the way has never really been a issue for me, then when JSB came out with there's and put and end to that perceived issue. I had many emails back and forth with Joseph (when he owned JSB) about developing a 10.3 .177 and adding a .20 to their line up. Many of you may not know that I use to import JSB pellets, a million at a time. The very first tin of 10.3's to enter the U.S. were tested at my home range by Ken Rideout. He did a very detailed report on the old yellow forum.
The bigger issue has the shortage of guns in .20 especially PCP's not pellets that shoot well. So to answer the original question is the .20 dead? Not as long as I am able to shoot my .20 guns.

tim
 
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I certainly don't hate .20 cal. I didn't know there was a market for that calibre, until I came to this site. Most of the places I shop don't sell anything in .20, be it ammunition or rifles.

I think .20 maybe makes sense in a lot of highly restricted markets like the UK where there's the 12ft-lb rule. .22 is a little heavy for such a low power limit, but .20 you can still get to some reasonable speeds.

But if you're in a market where you can have any power level you want, you might as well go to .22 since it's cheaper, more readily available, hits harder, and a large array of readily-available rifles can shoot it at any sub-sonic speed you'd like.

That said, a lot of rifles would be pretty easy to convert to .20 cal. The Leshiy 2 would just need a barrel and a magazine.
 
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It's not about ".22 since it's cheaper, more readily available" to the die hard .20 fan. You also make a great point about the 12ft issue on .22's. This is the reason I am not sure the R7 in .20 would blow my skirt up.
I have had a .20 for the past 20 years and to us that shoot it , we won't stop. I have a lot of guns and have had a lot. Over 100 at one time, .22 was always my choice till I started shooting .20's.
tim
 
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Plenty of shooters still value .20 but the arrival of heavy .177 sort of killed off the big sales of .20 which peaked in the 90s.
Now that 10 to 15 grain .177 are available…and even up to 21 grains in slugs ….you can have efficient ballistic coef with deep penetration ..also a much greater choice of .177 in the store.
My old .20 Sheridan still my favourite gun for all tha…
 
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Guess I fit in with the black sheep squad then...lol.
Hw9720 said:
It's not about ".22 since it's cheaper, more readily available" to the die hard .20 fan. You also make a great point about the 12ft issue on .22's. This is the reason I am not sure the R7 in .20 would blow my skirt up.
tim
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Have an R7 .20 and shoots very nicely to the 30ish yards I have. Numbers from my chrony:
-H&N FTT's: Average 554, ES 11, SD 3, 7.78 fpe
-JSB Exact: Average 497, ES 20, SD 6, 7.53 fpe
-H&N Spitzkugel: Average 585, ES 21, SD 6, 8.33 fpe
-Predator Polymags: Average 488, ES 17, SD 5, 6.88 fpe
 
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